Mathias Cormann, Michaelia Cash and Mitch Fifield resigned their portfolios to bring on the spill. Fifield switched camp to Morrison. They may be restored to the ministry but Australian voters would be right to raise a question. Do they deserve saving?

Those who did the numbers for Dutton, such as Victorian conservative Michael Sukkar and ACT Senator Zed Seselja, heavied their way through the party room to force colleagues to sign up.

Some Liberals were offered inducements like ministries while others were threatened with punishment if they held out, with the clear threat that preselections could be at risk.

The whole operation was “politically dodgy” according to one Liberal and totally clumsy according to another.

“It didn’t go on for a week because there was a plan, it’s just that it was badly organised,” says one MP.

Illustration: Matt Golding

No policy visions were put forward to justify this crisis. More than anything, this was an exercise in vindictive payback. Among the losers are those who were bent on vengeance against Turnbull, not least of them Tony Abbott.

The former prime minister and his closest colleagues, Kevin Andrews and Eric Abetz, claim to stand for conservative values but deliver chronic instability instead.

The outcome on Friday proved, as if anyone needed it, that the Liberals can only prosper if the arch-conservatives give up the delusion that they are the future of the party.